The second two days of sessions at College Lake with Reception children from Ashmead School took place this week, with each group of children showing very different approaches to exploring and making sense of the different environments at the College Lake reserve.

There was still a real fascination with the tracks and footprints left in the wet mud by people, animals and cars/tractors, and some children used found charcoal to make marks, but this time there was also more imaginative play about who or what lived at the reserve, and how they got there.

For instance, the old broom inside the reconstructed charcoal burner’s hut sparked tales of flying witches, and sticks became flying machines and fishing rods, whilst a wooden den in the woods was a school room for one little boy.

There was also more focus on seeking out and naming birds, listening to bird calls, and talking about the formations that they flew or swam in.

What we’ve done since, is to draw from our notes, photos and memories of the visits; the teachers sharing their insight on the children’s behaviour with me, and how being at College Lake has supported or altered particular behaviours, and me explaining my own interest in particular children’s ways of working, and how these relate to work I’ve done elsewhere or other areas of my practice.

On Monday I’m heading back to school to run the first of three days of sessions with two smaller groups, giving us a chance to follow those children’s fascinations to a greater depth, and translate some of the excitement and magic into the school’s own grounds.

We’ll be reflecting with the children using photographs taken by us and them, and offering a chance to use mark-making, sticking and construction, as one teacher suggested, to enable the children to share their thoughts and ideas in ways other than verbally.

We’ll also be exploring the school’s own fields and trees in similar ways to those used on our College Lake visits.

Its going to give me an opportunity to get to know individual children a lot better, and for us as a team to plan and provide them with new opportunities for the last two days of the project, that meet their needs more closely and support them to develop their own means of learning and exploring within the context of their own local environment.